in to the woods
by synaesthesia
Summary: ... So she came back.
1. in to the woods you go again

This has been in my files for a while. Maybe chapter one, maybe a one shot.

Taken from the Original Novel, and a deeper Christine only allowed by what Kay wrote. Can't forget the ALW play and movie.

_ So she came back._

* * *

What would you have had me do?

There's no light here, nothing hopeful and so bright that I would need to shield my eyes. I have descended in to the closest pit to Hell, haunted by the ever looming Lucifer himself. O beauty! Cat eyes and porcelain skin, something mysterious and drawing, seduction whispering in my ears, a mantra of dark music thick with something like desire.  
I see nothing here. I feel the night like a shroud; masking, hiding. I feel the cold and as long as I'm numb I can keep up this facade. I can feel nothing here.

Erik is Dead.

My voice is in this dank, once nighttime illuminate palace ruin. As long as there is my song I can make believe nothing has changed, that you'll answer back. In the echo, deeper and farther below, the reverberating hum comes back lower, more masculine. 

Erik is Dead.

O Angel.

There is nothing here. I am dirty with mud and soot from the fire; I am caked and smudged in brown. But this is the night, this is Your dark, and everything turns to beauty in the black. Maybe that's all it was, but you were beautiful to me even in candlelight, in moonlight; in the light refracting off the snow, off the gold on the Lyre. You shown brightest with a little luminescence guiding you, and you pulsed in our music, like a temple full of candlesas soft as the spread of wings.

I tumbled in to the gondola; it was a little further out than I remembered. A Chesire-Cat moon provides so little here, so little, .. How deep is the water? You always made me lean back against you, never let me stray too close to the edge. I groped my way along, pushed by a light warmth drifting by, a breath being exhaled.

I heard the pong of a piano key, just slightly, just lightly; barely even a tap. Your_ Don Juan_ living and breathing, rugged, raw with primal emotion. It didn't grow louder as the vessel neared the shore, finally sliding to a dull stop with a slush of water. I saw the outline of your artistic playground, hearing the beast dozing. I saw thick drops of water slipping down on to the dying ivory, your tears playing my last lullaby.

Erik is Dead.

There's no distinction here, from land to water; I am floating and falling.

And I _love _you.

I hated you so much I adored you, had to have you. My voice just a shade without yours overpowering.

"_Strange angel_, .. "

A candleabra clattered to the floor, Your night making it impossible. You were everywhere here, every trick of sound, every sudden object; you were moving this underground pit with a stretch of your fingers, a curl of your lips.

I didn't realize I was barefoot until I entered your chambers, where I found the plush Persian Carpet a welcomed surprise against the cool stone. My hands were everywhere, searching. O Angel, O _Angel_

My dirty nails scraped against some fine wood; some dark, rich wood that would only suit you. My fingers slid down a satin material, the inside of a coffin.

I didn't scream when I felt your fingers, cold and stiff. This didn't suit you, something so still and unanimated.  
Especially your hands.

I hiked my dress past my knees, stepped upa slow dance in which I performed solo. I fell in silently, smooth against your deflated body. My palms were at your face, where I wasn't surprised to feel the porcelain mask of mysteries gone from your skin forever. I pressed my cheek there, pressed my lips there.

In the waning moonlight, as I pushed the prop away to have the lid slam shut, I caught the glint of my wedding ring. Your wedding ring.

Ours. 

I HAVE GIVEN YOU MY SOUL TO-NIGHT AND NOW I AM DEAD.


	2. not the same place we've been before

I hadn't planned on continuing this, but eventually -- over the course of a year or so -- I'd kept writing, adding to it, late at night. Le enjoy.

**_

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_**

**_not the same place we've been before_**

* * *

"What demon!"

This was not the death I had hoped for.

"_What succubus_, .." Some masculine voice was sobbing beautifully, strong cold hands shaking me, jarring me violently.

So Hell was my final destination after all; I opened my eyes.

Where was the brimstone and fire? It was dark, except for a flash of gold in front of me; expressioned yellow that widened with emotion.

"_O God_!" All at once I was gathered toward something firm, arms spilling around me and hugging me close. "O _God_," came the voice again; strained, breathless and vague. "Christine, .."

Familiarity reigned supreme. That voice! That voice, as surely as the nights it had caressed the deepest parts of my ear, my mind, my _soul-- I know that voice._ My cheeks were warm. "Erik----"

"I thought you were dead."

This place smelled like death, desire and music. He was still warm and how hadn't I felt that? How hadn't I known? I said his name, the prayer that would chase away some lingering nightmare. He shuddered against me.

"You were so still," an angel's voice was hidden in this quiet, subdued rasp. "Child, your little hands were so _still_." Was that his grip in my hair, his chest against mine? We were both breathing so deep. I felt like I was still falling, funneling down, ..

It was a long moment of him just touching, caressing, reassuring, his body pressing against me in a way that was suddenly very normal, something that seemed we'd done every day. In the quiet, in the drawn out silence, I heard him whisper against my scalp -- his breath cool and wayward -- "Did I hurt you, Christine?"

_I was afraid._ My surroundings filtered in -- we were so close to a coffin, so close to his eternal bed. A simple shake of my head seemed impossible, a somber no so difficult. It was suddenly too easy to cry.

And in his arms, that was exactly what I did.


	3. to erase

To begin again is to return once more to where we end. And to end, now, is to return to where we've begun.

**_

* * *

_**

**_to erase .. scars that silence carved_**

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* * *

_**

The room in which he'd allowed me to stay during the course of our earliest meetings had remained untouched; the fire, his own doing, I imagine, had razed his music to the ground, soot covering paintings, compositions littering the floor in a curl of charcoal paper. The moments of closeness seemed like a passing dream; he stood so far from me now, feet seeming miles, so many miles, .. His back was to me, arms woven tightly, gripping themselves; was he afraid? Was the cool breath of Death still circling him?

"I thought you'd died." I said, dumbly. My voice seemed unnatural.

There was a bark of laughter. "It seems we were both gravely mistaken." Then came another dry chuckle, though it drifted out more like a sob. "Oh, my dear. A pun was not my intention." I sat on what I'd come to know as his mother's bed; it was stiff beneath me, and when I rose it quietly creaked against my retreating weight. Erik grew rigid.

"You came back," He whispered before I'd sauntered too close behind him. He radiated something dark, something drawing that kept pulling -- over whatever distance we as humans erect to protect the sacred relics of our hearts, even through death, it seemed. He pulled me toward him unknowingly. I hung in the air, still drifting closer, as if angel down spiraling toward the earth. "You came back, here -- a _dungeon_, a coffin. _Never ending night_." He turned; when had he replaced the mask? It glowed white against the pale illumination of a few salvaged candles. "Never ending black.

"I thought you were truly smarter than that, my child. I give you freedom and you still think you're _bound _to me? Your pity knows no end!" His arms separated, coming out on all sides; anger flowed in to his muscles. I saw his shoulders shrug. "Or maybe your ignorance. What, come to play the martyr, _mon ange_? You bore your cross; this good Samaritan crushed it to splinters! You have finished your lessons, you have conquered this monster." Erik turned more; behind the mask I knew there were tight lines of regret. "You tamed the beast, Christine! _Surely _you cannot think I mean to do another harm! I will live out my days here in silent peace; I will die alone and _you will be rid of me_." He was gripping the hearth, shaking despite how coolly his voice resounded in my ears; how calm, infinitely collected.

"_You are not alone_ --" I fought against this rabid onslaught, came closer, drew nearer. Those miles dissolved. I used to be so afraid being beside him, too near; his voice always so overpowering, my mind-- littered to the brim with what could be-- always too tempting. His taboo affection too frightening, too desirable.

Too needed.

He turned, eyes aflame, "_Aren't _I?" He muttered darkly, sarcastically, "I have lived here, in many years of quiet solitude! Then _you _--" Erik stopped suddenly.

"Then me, .." I was tired; too many tears suckling life from me like a thousand children nursing. I smelled like something burning; I sounded like ash rising. "Then _I came._" He seemed to retreat from the argument, if almost. If slightly. "You're not alone," it was a broken sigh, my voice suddenly unworthy to be heard by him.

But still, with guarded fear, leashed need, I put my hands to his heaving chest; under the thick black of a dress suit I could feel thundering muscle shuddering in to life. His bare fingers gripped in to mine, the cold being warmed. I drew my left hand to his porcelain cheek; a soft slide of my palm, and the mask was peeling away. I heard a shatter as it slipped from my fingers. So much emotion drained in to his face, suddenly not so deformed, suddenly too handsome. Hadn't I kissed the sagging skin deep in the bowels of his casket? If he was alive now, why didn't he mention that? Why didn't he acknowledge where I was, who I was touching, who I decided to stand beside, _who's ring I was wearing? _Did his genius lose it's grip, too many dark days below his Opera House?

"You came back." He sounded exhausted.

"I came back," I echoed.

Erik seemed to grow taller, "You're truly a stupid girl."

I made a careful attempt not to trip over my obtrusive dress in the next step I took, "I'm known for my voice, not my wit."

In his eyes, the sorrow -- that had once drew me, bound me to his side -- grew golden, fluttering beneath his deformed eyelids. He still managed an aloofness that did nothing but unnerve me; _Lose control! Touch me, take me. I'm here. I'm right here! _

Love _me!_

But I .. But it was me, .. There was a loud cry and, suddenly strange, I crushed myself against him, arms tightening in to him, pulling him near. I snapped and coiled, curling in to him like a cat arching her back to the master's hand. I gripped him so tightly, so suddenly he seemed at first to try to pull away. Then came my silent teacher, my untouchable angel, distant lover; his hands spilled around me like creeping ice.

"Why are you here, Christine?" His voice was tight, trying to defy gravity. I knew I'd begun to cry.

A soothing breath passed over me, and his touch smoothed down the wiry curls that sprung at my throat. He whispered my name, two skeletal fingers curving in to my skin, down to my chin, pulling me foreword-- lifting me up. My face was bared to him like an offering, ugly tears and all. I gasped, rocking in his supporting embrace. "Why are you here?" He murmured again after a long while, once I quieted; but make no mistake, that near-silent question was laced with power, definitive command; his height seemed to extend to God, his voice frightening in its own right. He demanded the information.

_"Why?"_ Growing either impatient or desperate, he gripped me by the shoulders, willed me still-- in turn willing me mute. My cold hands pressed in to either side of his sunken face, holding him steady and firm. A boy paced behind his eyes, but here he was, still very much an older man, still very much an _expectant_ man on the verge of another argument; was there always so much suffering?

My palm pressed over his forehead and the heavy lines of anger dissolved momentarily. His lips sagged and I drew him closer and further in to me, the tears evaporating on my skin. Everything was silent; we weren't breathing. The brush of his fingers on my arms pounded in my skull, rattled my eardrums. His heartbeat against my temple was a war march.

"What do you want me to say, Erik?" The music of his body lost it's distraction, the muscles that had sung in my ears became quiet; I only heard his impatient snarl.

"Do not play games with me, Christine!"

But he wasn't moving me away. O no, no, _no _he was caressing my elbows, his nose drifting in to my scalp where he was breathing deep.

".. I want to be," I whispered. "I want to be here. I don't know what it means but I want to be here."

"Here?" He sounded so small, so young! My angel was turning back time.

I dug further; it felt like nothing was separating now, .. no more feet, no more miles; the black gulf dried and we had finally trudged from each end of the Earth, colliding right in to one another. I held fast. "Right here."

He sighed, or gasped, or made some beautiful sound in his throat. Then, as if a boy touching his mother for the first time, his fingers pressed against my cheekbones and he drew back for a look at me -- was I being honest, was I being true? His eyes held the only question between us. In the candlelight -- yes, in light -- he looked almost afraid. Suddenly I did not know him, and yet suddenly I felt as if this man was all my soul had ever had to sustain it, to comfort it, to love it; I felt as if now this was the moment that both of us had eagerly awaited, the circumstance that would decide the end of the opera, the ascent of the climax.

Then -- and then -- quite timidly, the palms of his hands drifted against my jaw, past my collarbone and gripped around the uppermost area of my trembling arms. And softly, he pulled me against him. I called for him, and he called for me. Then quite suddenly, he kissed me. There was nothing awkward about the kiss; I returned it eagerly. My memory blurs, as all the happiness in the world seemed to instill within me. He touched me not unknowingly, only as if he'd waited since God himself decided the two of us would be born on the same little world to meet me at this moment, in this way. We broke many barriers, we tore through the silences of years and many, many pains. His body, his _soul_, became _mine_, and in return he asked the same price of me.

There was no sacrifice, only offering.

Together, exhausted, we tumbled in his night, I caressed him in the light, and finally we came to a slow stall, his warm body pressed in to mine against his rumbling piano. There was no shame; his palms were beneath my legs, holding me against him. He was barely breathing; against him my chest rose and fell painfully. His lips burned against my neck, leaving a trail of searing desire against my lungs.

He grew still against my shuddering body, his hips pinning me harshly against the ivory keys. I felt the ghost of his hands rising from the black and white, rustling past the folds of cloth, rushing against where his hands lay -- returning to the source -- and massaging my soul. I sighed deeply as his teeth ground out my name.

"For this," I stuttered, "I came back for this. For you." Sweat trickled a silent stream against his shoulders; I placed my hands there. "For me."

He glanced to me, graying hair fluffing over his gaze. Sweat clung to the strands, made him look startling, handsome, human and then, really, not human at all. "I am glad death did not take me before I saw at least a glimpse of Heaven, Christine, as I am certain I will never again behold it."

"_Erik _--" And I kissed him again. I found words inadequate now; after so many years of communicating with this man through only song, through beats and measures, and _words_, I found them wholly unnecessary. I sang opera; I could be any woman I wished. I had been any woman I wished. For Erik, I wanted to be only Christine.

So I clung to him, rushed through his body like a blind animal. We knocked against the stillness of this place and infused within it _life. _From me, he took what vitality I had left. His mind was infinitely younger where he body was not, and yet his touch, his kiss, and his feel seemed youthful. We ground away the flesh between us and loved -- yes, we _loved_! -- with our souls.

A silence eventually settled over the room. The lesson was finished, the night wore on, and the candles slowly began to flicker out of existence. He'd gently laid me against his mother's bed, my back bare and moist against the antique lace. He lay beside me, a free and yet tame animal in my arms. I held him as I'd always wanted to, and in turn .. he held me as I'd always wished for him to.

I pressed a kiss in to his scalp. His breathing was so silent, I came to wonder if he breathed at all! Yet I continued to touch him, wander over his skin, this temple I'd come to worship.

"I loved you, I think, before I was born," I whispered, "How else explains why only now do I feel as if I've come home?" _Strange angel._ "You'll let me stay, won't you?"

He answered with silence.

I smiled sadly, drug limp fingers through his damp hair. "Don't deny me your voice, Erik .. not now. I love you far too much. Can't you understand?" I wrapped both arms around his broad shoulders and rolled on to my side. My eyes drifted over the glinting hair of his stomach, his chest. The candles flickered brightly once, and in their last, dying light, I took in the beauty of his slackened face.

"Erik?"

And the candles blotted out of existence.

_.. Erik is dead._

_

* * *

_--- Fin. 


End file.
